Heavyweights come together against nutrition, stunting

Working with Big Win Philanthropy and Aliko Dangote Foundation, the African Development Bank (www.AfDB.org) has unveiled a new Multi-Sectoral Nutrition Action Plan (https://bit.ly/2E4d3vW) that aims at raising investments towards reducing stunting by 40% in African children aged under 5 by 2025.

Africa loses $25 billion per year in costs attributed to child morbidity and mortality, impaired cognitive, physical and economic development caused by malnutrition. Yet these losses are almost entirely preventable.

The ambitious MNAP is looking for additional support and commitments from governments for nutrition.

Jennifer Blanke, Vice-President, Agriculture, Human and Social Development, African Development Bank, stressed the importance of engaging energetically and substantially with the private sector “if we want to achieve long-lasting results.”

Through the plan (https://bit.ly/2E4d3vW), AfDB commits to scale up the proportion of investments that are ‘nutrition-smart’ in the agriculture, water, sanitation and hygiene, and social and health sectors.

“In terms of human development, nutrition is as important as investments in infrastructure and power in stimulating economic growth. Big Win Philanthropy is thrilled with President Adesina’s leadership in giving greater priority to nutrition and the wider human capital investment agenda," said Jamie Cooper, Chair and President, Big Win Philanthropy.

“By leveraging investments across five sectors, and encouraging its member countries to do the same, the African Development Bank is achieving 'double wins' for every dollar spent: improving lives and generating economic growth.”

Speaking at the launch, Chief Executive Officer, Dangote Foundation, Zouera Youssoufou, said, “We know we cannot do this by ourselves, so it made sense to put money at the African Development Bank to develop this nutrition strategy. We are really happy to see the strategy come together following a two-year journey.”

In 2017, more than a third of the world’s stunted children under the age of five lived in Africa with stunting rates ranging from 35.6% in East Africa to 32.1%, 29.9%, 29.1%, and 17.3% in Central Africa, West Africa, Southern Africa and Northern Africa respectively, according to the plan, which also revealed that Africa is the only region in the world where the number of stunted children has risen in the past few years.